'Dude, is this place like, haunted, or something?'
Stiles turns to look at Scott, mouth agape, because Scott did not just seriously ask Derek Hale whether the house in which almost his entire family burnt to death is haunted.
Derek's eyes flash red as he answers tersely.
'What?'
Scott breezes on unaware of (or indifferent to) the death glare that Derek is currently giving him.
'Coz this is the third time that we've come here and you've been talking to someone before we pulled up. Like, I can hear you when we're a couple of minutes away. So, I was thinking are there, like, ghosts here?'
Derek growls.
'No, there are not ghosts here, Scott. I was on the phone, you imbecile.'
Scott's face scrunches up.
'I don't think you were. I heard you say -'
Derek growls again and pushes Scott out of the way as he leaves the house, slamming the door behind him, which Stiles thinks is testament to his rage, since slamming doors at the Hale house is likely to end in bringing the roof down. This place is structurally unsound like whoa.
Stiles slaps Scott across the back of the head.
'Nice one dude. You realize that our goal of making Derek share information with us is not helped by you making him so angry that he leaves the house.'
'Whatever, like he was going to help us anyway.'
Stiles looks around the gloomy house. 'Do you think it really is haunted?'
Scott frowns. 'I don't know but he definitely wasn't on the phone. I heard him say "I don't know what I'm doing Laura." You think his sister is haunting him?'
Stiles shivers.
'I wouldn't be surprised by anything that happens in this town anymore.'
Because Stiles has never been able to leave well enough alone, the next time he goes to Derek's with Scott he takes a recording device with him. He wouldn't call the Beacon Hills police force slack in their security, but let's just say he knows the place well enough to know where things are kept and what he can misappropriate for a few days without anyone noticing.
It's not a fancy thing like you see in spy films. Stiles isn't going to be sat home with headphones on listening in real time. It's just a small device, about the size of a quarter and Stiles waits until Scott and Derek are sparring in the back garden before slotting it into a crack in one of the floorboards and covering it over with a layer of dust and ash.
He wipes his hands on his jeans, hoping he isn't touching the remains of one of Derek's family members. Yeuch.
He knows Derek will smell where he's been (which is something that Stiles is still getting used to - because it's really creepy) so he makes sure to poke around all over the bottom floor of the house so that Derek will just think he's being super nosy.
He goes outside, sits on the grass and attempts to study but he mainly ends up laughing at Scott as he's constantly bested by Derek. Scott ends up on his ass a lot that day and Stiles is man enough to admit that he takes some pleasure from having one day where it's not him constantly ending up in a messy pile of limbs on the ground.
Stiles convinces Scott that he needs another training session a few days later when he nearly rips some jock's head off for daring to ask Allison out. To be fair he probably does need the training session so Stiles feels pretty justified in his manipulation. Once Scott and Derek are immersed in their session (which seems mainly to consist of crouching, staring and growling at each other, at this point) Stiles goes back into the house on the pretext of grabbing his jacket. He digs around in the floorboard until he retrieves the listening device and slips it into his wallet. Once again he goes back outside and attempts to study while being repeatedly distracted by the sight of Scott being sent sailing through the air (and maybe once or twice by Derek flexing his muscles and wiping the sweat off his abs with his discarded tank top - but whatever - he's only human).
Once he gets in he loads the audio file onto his laptop and puts his headphones on (he knows they probably won't stop Derek from hearing if he suddenly swings in the window but it might buy him a few seconds to press the stop button). The device only records when there's sound so he won't have to sit through hours of dead silence.
The first twenty minutes is of Derek and Scott debriefing after their session last Saturday and Stiles winces as his own voice interrupts with a sarcastic quip every now and then (his voice doesn't really sound like that, does it?).
The next ten minutes on the file are what sounds like someone stomping around on the floor in boots and is probably, in reality, Derek pacing close to the device. (Stiles is starting to regret putting it in the floorboards now.)
Once, there's a loud bang followed by a curse and Stiles laughs, not sure if Derek has knocked something over or maybe broken a door frame doing that use-your-house-as-a-cheap-pull-up-bar thing he does.
Finally there's some actual vocal and Stiles is shocked when he realizes that Derek is singing. Like, maybe just wandering around, doing his chores in his wreck of a house and singing softly to himself. Stiles doesn't know the song but it sounds kind of country and Stiles is not at all shocked that Derek listens to the music of pain. He pauses the file and messes around on the internet for a bit. He feels sort of uncomfortable for invading Derek's privacy like this. He doesn't quite know why Derek's singing has made him feel uncomfortable but he feels sort of like he's hearing things he's not meant to. (Which he totally is.) Like, it didn't matter when all he thought he'd be hearing was the usual rage and supernatural happenings but hearing Derek unguarded, just going about his life, is sort of weird. It feels like Stiles is stealing moments that he has no right to.
Twenty minutes later he's opening the file back up though. He reasons that if there are supernatural shenanigans going on then he's probably going to get dragged into them at some point anyway so getting a head's up is only fair. And if the place isn't haunted and Derek has had some kind of psychotic break and thinks his family is talking to him then Stiles would really rather know about it as soon as possible.
He presses play and this time he hears quick rhythmic thumps that he guesses are Derek running laps around the bottom floor of his house.
On the next clip Stiles can hear Derek talking but he can't make out the words. It goes on for about two minutes but he's too far away from the recorder and no matter how much Stiles turns the volume up he can't hear what Derek is saying.
The next bit of audio is just loud banging and Stiles has no idea what is causing it. He hears the odd grunt and huff of air from Derek though, so he assumes this is another part of Derek's weird work-out schedule.
There's a ten minute clip of Derek snoring so Stiles lets it play and messes around on Facebook for a bit. He nearly knocks the laptop off his bed when the rhythmic sound of Derek snoring is interrupted by a pain-filled roar. Stiles' heart instantly starts racing and he hears Derek take a shuddering painful-sounding breath. His breathing is harsh and quick and Stiles recognizes it as the breath of someone on the brink of a panic attack. Stiles hears movement like maybe Derek is sitting up and then he whimpers and says quietly 'I'm sorry, Laura'. Then there's heavy, quick, footsteps and the slam of a door.
Stiles unclenches his hands from the sides of his laptop and tries to will away the sick feeling that comes from hearing Derek wake up from a nightmare.
The next clip is quiet talking again but this time when Stiles turns the volume up he can just make out the words. Derek's voice gets louder and then quieter and then louder again and Stiles figures he's pacing back and forth.
'How am I meant to do this Laura?'
Derek's feet make soft thuds on the ground and Stiles thinks he must have had bare feet because it's not like the hard thump of his boots in the earlier clip.
'You promised me that we wouldn't have to come back here if we didn't want to and now I'm stuck. If I leave then Scott's probably never going to learn to be a good werewolf. He'll probably flip and kill someone. Allison or his mum or Stiles. And Stiles might be able to keep him on the right path for a while but he's too reckless and Scott's too quick to jump on board with any stupid plan.'
Stiles listens, his heart in his mouth as Derek goes on, talking about him and Scott and then he presses pause when Derek admits to finding a charred picture of him and Laura with their mom. Stiles wipes the audio device and then goes to find his dad. He's sitting on the coach, watching a game and Stiles flops down next to him. His dad shoots him a surprised look and says:
'You're not out with Scott tonight?'
'No.' Stiles replies, still trying to push away the nausea lying heavily in his stomach. 'I thought I'd come and watch some TV with the old man.'
His dad laughs and says 'Less of the 'old', thanks' but he looks pleased.
Stiles looks at the TV but he doesn't pay any attention to the game, mind completely on what he'd heard. He knows now that the Hale house isn't haunted and Derek doesn't think he can see his sister. He's just talking and Stiles should have realized, because he knows what that's like. He knows what it's like to still want to talk to someone even though they're gone. He knows what it's like to be angry at someone for not being there even though it's not their fault. He thinks of Derek alone in the shell of his house surrounded by memories of his mom and his dad and his siblings and he sees Derek as a real person for almost the first time. Not as some snarling villain (which he's never really been anyway), or an information source, or a pretty face and hot body who can be used to distract people or trick stuff out of them – but as a guy – a lonely, messed-up, grief-filled guy who has no idea what he's doing either. Stiles wishes he hadn't been so curious now.
Stiles gets the device back to the police station without any problems and Scott seems to have forgotten all about the whole thing, obsessed as he is by Allison and the way her hair looks today, or the way she looked at him in the hallway earlier, and life should just go right back to normal (well as normal as things ever are for a guy with a werewolf for a best friend). It doesn't though because Stiles can't get the Derek thing out of his head and it's starting to drive him a little crazy. He still doesn't trust Derek and he thinks they're a long way off being friends but Stiles feels like maybe he should make a bit more of an effort. Maybe he should try to give Derek someone to talk to who isn't a) yelling at him and blaming him for everything that's wrong with their life, b) trying to kill him or c) already dead.
He thinks about it on and off all week but it isn't until late one evening when he's home alone that he decides on a plan. He knows Derek is there as soon as he steps in to the room – he's lurking in the shadows, like always (the creeper), and Stiles knows he's waiting for him to switch on the lights and scream like a girl in a horror film but instead he just walks over to his bed, flops down and start talking into the darkness.
'School sucked today, Mom. Harris gave me detention again, Scott ditched me at lunch to make out with Allison and then Coach made me run extra laps at training just because I was talking to Scott while he was giving us his version of a pep talk. It was important though, because Scott's eyes were starting to do that glowing thing, and he thinks it's not that noticeable but it really is, and I know he's been blowing off his training with Derek to sneak off with Allison all week.'
Stiles listens but his room is completely silent and he wonders if Derek is holding his breath. It's too dark to see anything. He carries on talking.
'I tried to tell him that yeah, maybe Derek doesn't know everything but he knows more about being a werewolf than either of us do. I've been thinking that maybe we should invite Derek round to do something with us one day, to just hang instead of to train. Like, maybe he might stop thinking of us as an annoyance and start thinking of us as more like pack members. Well, maybe not me, so much – but Scott said that one time Derek said they were brothers now...so. I don't know...Scott's always kind of been like a brother to me anyway and thinking of Derek as my best mate's older brother would be kind of ok.'
Stiles pauses again but there's still silence. He tries to keep his breath even so that his heart rate won't give away his nerves. He swallows.
'I wonder what you'd think of him, Mom. I wish you were here to meet him. I think you'd fuss over him and try to make sure he was eating right and maybe you could talk him into getting electricity at his place so Scott and I could come over for gaming nights and to watch DVD's. I don't know...maybe he still wouldn't want to hang out with us. Maybe he's happy the way he is. Maybe he doesn't want an annoying hyperactive teenager for a friend.'
He figures he's made his point by now, even if Derek hasn't realized that Stiles knows that he's there, so he ends as he usually does, when he's home alone and telling his mom about his life.
'I'm trying to make sure Dad eats well, like I promised. And I'm trying to be good for him, even though I fail pretty badly at that at times. We miss you. I love you, Mom. Night.'
He lies on his bed, feeling the tears that always come when he does this. He's doing it as much for his benefit as he is Derek's. He feels closer to his mom when he does this and he figures that if such an impossible thing as werewolves exists then maybe it's not so unreasonable to assume that his mom is watching down on him and listening to what he tells her. He rolls over on to his side, facing away from the window and a few minutes later he hears a quiet shuffle and then the muffled thump of a supernatural being landing on his lawn and running off into the night. He smiles into his bed sheets hoping that whatever Derek came to talk to him about can wait.
He doesn't hear anything for a few days then at lunch he gets a text that just says:
This is my cell number in case of emergencies. If you and Scott want to come to the house after school you can. Thought I could show you some defense moves.
There's no name but it's obvious who it's from. Stiles texts back:
Show *me* some defense moves? Or was that just for Scott? I'm not his social secretary you know?
Stiles adds a smiley face to the text – he doesn't want to stop Derek from texting but it'd seem odd to Derek if he suddenly started acting like they're best buds. His phone vibrates.
Yeah I know some self-defense for humans - I could teach you if you want?
Then a second later:
If you're going to be part of my pack I want to know you can protect yourself.
Stiles grins so hard that the girls sitting at the table opposite him look alarmed and determinedly don't make eye contact with him as if he might be crazy. Stiles doesn't care. He just texts back:
We'll be there. Or even if Scott's busy, I'll be there. I'll stop at the store on my way and get snacks.
He's still smiling when he sits down in his seat for his next class. He feels his phone go off once more in his pocket and when the teacher's distracted he slides out his phone and reads:
Bring M&Ms.
He grins and types out.
OK. See you in a few hours. :)
He spends the next hour repeating 'part of my pack' in his head and thinking that maybe this werewolf thing wasn't as bad as he'd first thought.